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PNC’s “12 Days of Christmas” price index

December 9, 2011

Here is a little holiday fun to distract you from your end of the year reports, projects, and papers.

PNC Financial has been constructing a “12 Days of Christmas Price Index” since 1984. This is a fixed basket price index (like the CPI) in which the basket of good is: 1 partridge (and a pear tree, too, I guess), 2 turtledoves, 3 French hens, etc.

The website for the project is here, but a more concise summary is here.

Some highlights:

Overall, the index is up 3.5 percent from last year; the 12-month increase in the CPI for October was exactly 3.5 percent, too. (bls.gov)

Similar to the way that the Bureau of Labor Statistics computes a core CPI that doesn’t include the extremely volatile food and energy components, PNC computes a core index that doesn’t include swans. The core 12-days index only rose 0.7 percent.

The price of 5 gold rings hasn’t changed much over the year, even though the price of Gold ETFs are up about 30 percent from last December.

The goods with the most inflation are partridges and turtledoves, both up 25 percent.

The goods with the least inflation are the “calling birds,” whose price fell 13 percent this year.